Shikasta

I did not know immediately what had happened: I had to piece information together later.

Meanwhile, in the Round City, Jarsum headed a group who refused to go at all. He showed the noblest self-sacrifice in staying. He knew that his fellows, and himself, the disobedient Giants, risked their very beings, their souls - yet he would stay. The tall white Giant with her bizarre and disturbing beauty stayed, and with her others who were her progeny, all of them sports and showing the strangest combinations of physical characteristics. She said that she was a genetic freak, and could have no place on the planet where the Giants were being taken.

How did she know this? I asked, pointing out that the galaxy included varieties of creatures she had never dreamed of. But "she knew it." Bad enough that she had had to live out her life among people different from herself, always an alien, without having to start all over again.

This while we were waiting for the spacecraft's arrival.

Meanwhile, discussions went on about what to tell the Natives.

The Giants were showing a yearning, passionate, protecting concern for their erstwhile charges which contrasted absolutely with their former strength of confidence. At every moment I was confronted with Jarsum, or another Giant, all great accusing eyes, and tragic faces. How can you treat the poor things like this! was what I was meant to feel. And every practical discussion was interrupted by heavy sighs, looks of reproach, murmurs about cruelty and callousness. But in spite of this, I was able to arrange that some songs and tales should be made, and taken by suitable individuals among the Natives from city to city, which would transmit and inform at least the basics of the new situation.

And these emissaries were informed that in each city they must seek out a few representative Natives and tell them that they must prepare for crisis, for a period of hardship and deprivation, that they must wait for other messengers to come and instruct.

The Giants arranged this. They had to. The Natives knew the Giants as their mentors and could not suddenly see them otherwise.

But the Giants were leaving - went the songs.

And so on. These were not exactly the words I would have chosen, but they adequately expressed the indignation of the Giants on their own behalf, displaced to the Natives.

Meanwhile, I was making contacts among the Natives, carefully, slowly, testing one individual and then another. An interesting fact was that at the begi

It was as if I had been given the task of telling someone in perfect health that he would shortly become a moron, but that he must do his best to remember some useful facts, which were a... b... c...

One morning, a good third of the Giants had disappeared. No one knew where to. The ones that remained waited submissively by the landing place where the spacecraft would descend - which happened, shortly afterwards. Three of our largest craft came down, and several thousand Giants left. Suddenly, no Giants, none, not one.

The Natives saw the descent of the spacecraft, watched the Giants crowd in, watched the great shining machines lift off and dart away into the clouds.

went the songs, and for days the Natives crowded around the landing spaces, looking up into the skies, singing. Of course they believed that their Giants would return. These rumours were soon everywhere and bred the appropriate songs.

I could not find out where the disobedient Giants were.

The Natives now entered all the tall buildings which had previously been the Giants' homes and functional buildings, and made them their own. This was not good for the exact dispositions of the Round City. I told them this. They had accepted me as one with a certain amount of authority, though of course nothing on the same level as their Giants, but by now most were not capable of accepting information. Already, sense and straightforwardness were being met with a vague wandering stare, or restless belligerent looks that were the first sign of the Degeneration.

A storyteller and song-maker, David, had become a friend, or at least seemed to recognise me. He was still to an extent in possession himself, and I asked him to watch what went on around him, and report to me when I returned from a journey to the nearest city. This stood on a great river near an inland sea where the tides' movements were minimal - the Crescent City. Again a river made an arm around it, but only on one side. The open side had streets and gardens laid out crossways to it, like the strings of a lyre. The music of this city was like the harmonies of lyre music, but before I reached it I could hear the discords, a grating shrillness that told me what I would find when I got there.

It was very beautiful, built of white and yellow stone, with intricate patterns everywhere on pavements, walls, roofs. The predominant colours of the clothes of the people were rust and grey, and these shone out against the green foliage, a brilliant sky. The Natives here were similar in build to those of the Round City, but they were yellow of skin, and their hair was always jetty black. I never saw these as they were, they really were, for by the time I reached them, the process of falling away was well developed. Again I sought out one who seemed more aware of what was happening than the others. The songs and tales had reached here, and these Natives, too, had watched the Giants leave in the enormous crystalline spacecraft which were already begi

I decided to return to the Round City. If the songs and tales had reached the Crescent City, they must have spread to all the others, and that was a begi

I walked towards it from the other side to that where I had come at first. Again it was through light open forest. As I got near where the Stones would begin, there were walnuts and almonds, apricots, pomegranates. The animals were thick here, but all seemed apprehensive, and stood looking in towards the city. They shook their heads, as if to dismiss unwelcome sound: they were already hearing what I could not, but soon did, as I reached the space where the Stones began. There was now a harshness in the harmonies that lapped out from the city, and my ears hurt. I had the begi